In September 2013, I was feeling completely defeated and disillusioned after facing the reality that I was not living in the “free society” that I had always believed in. My sister and my young niece were being taunted, tormented and terrorized by the person who vowed to cherish and protect them. Although I was accustomed to working with families in crisis and had a working knowledge of the Family Court process from both professional and personal experience, I had never witnessed the intensity of a serious stalker. This person was indefatigable in his desire to get back his “property.” Nobody who had contact with his wife or child was immune to his slanderous rage. The years had not soothed his psychosis; in fact, he was becoming more determined to enact his revenge. It became clear that his loss of control was turning him into a ticking time-bomb, and he felt he had nothing to live for. My family worried that he would take his former family with him.

New York has anti-stalking laws, but they are obscure and rarely enforced, especially in rural areas with short-staffed police departments. Small town prosecutors don’t want to touch these cases. That was unacceptable to me, and though I could do little to protect my own family, I could tell others about the injustices faced by stalking victims. I began blogging about the issues they face. Having spent these past few years drawing attention to these inadequacies, I realized that they occur in every state, not just ours. Through my data collection and research, I found that these problems have much deeper roots. Not only do we have a systemic failure of protecting victims’ rights, but there is also a moral failure to acknowledge them at all. We live in our fragile “bubbles,” where no harm can befall us until it actually DOES.

Our blissful ignorance leads to the social acceptance of terrible crimes. Why? Because we cannot handle the thought that evil does exist and nobody is immune to it. People who are “nice guys” can become predators if they continue to feed dysfunctional thoughts and allow their primitive brain to take over. In this case, my former brother-in-law took his own life and nobody else’s, thankfully. But recent trends show us that increasingly, seriously disturbed individuals are taking other lives too. After the fact, the stories are similar: a few warning signs, the family hadn’t worried about them, and the horrible sense of guilt that it all could have been prevented. I think we are at a crossroads as a human race where what we do next will determine the future of our children and the type of society that they will live in. We have an opportunity to move from denial and fear to acknowledgment and freedom.

It is for the children’s sake that I feel compelled to further explore these issues. Therefore, I have decided to increase the focus of this community and changing our name to one that fully reflects this. We will be called “The Human Mirror,” and I hope you will stick with us and support the new venture. I have no plans to delete the Human Rights Vs. Stalkers site so those who need it will be able to find it. We will still discuss victimization along with other current social issues. The primary mission of saving lives will continue to guide us as we move forward, along with the vision to build an awareness of how our lives can become agents of social change in exciting new ways. Thank you for your support.

Did you know that police are not required to enforce an “official” order of protection? And when they do attempt to do so, the charges against the accused are usually dropped. Victims know this. Perpetrators know it too. As a matter of fact, the USA is in violation of international human rights law on this issue. Just ask Jessica Lenahan, because she took it to the highest court in the entire world. To this day, reparations have not been made to her or any other victims in spite of the international court’s judgement.

I have worked very hard at drawing attention to the systemic failures of response to sexual assault and domestic violence by law enforcement. These past five years have shown me how racism and homophobia fit into the predictable pattern of ignoring an oppressed group by blaming and shaming them. I began my advocacy as an angry activist who shouted “Why don’t you just do your damn jobs?” However, I soon learned that the road to change was facing five distinct problems:

The huge level of both ignorance and bias out there in the general population.

The lack of incentive (from above) to do things differently.

The inadequate training and resource allocations within departments.

The unprofessional behavior justified by “protecting the brotherhood.”

The district attorneys’ prime focus: it all comes down to profits and costs.

One of the most frustrating refrains I heard from short-term advocates was, “nobody cares, not even the victims or survivors.” My response: Well I’m not going to give up on them because I believe change IS possible! I believe that change is now imminent with the following announcement by the US Department of Justice on December 15th.

It is ironic that change comes during one of the most volatile periods in USA history in light of the attention spent on police brutality and the reprise of racist crimes. I hope our people will soon open their eyes to the antecedents of these issues. It has nothing to do with having a victim mentality or feeling entitled to special treatment. It is about justice, freedom and peace for all of us.

We call them “crazy-makers,” because they enjoy re-creating us in their image of insanity. You’ve probably met at least one during your lifetime: the guy who calls his girlfriend “paranoid” as he is having several flings behind her back, or perhaps the girl who tells fakes pregnancy with every boy she dates. These people are unstable narcissistic sociopaths who love the favorable spotlight. But watch out if you make them look bad in front of their many admirers! Popularity is of utmost importance in their eyes, usually at the expense of anybody who crosses them. You may wish to further investigate a fascinating phenomenon of their characteristics called the “dark triad.”

Why then, are they so adored by others? There are a few reasons people cling to them in spite of the terrible things crazy-makers do. Entertainment value is the number one motivator – people love watching a good show between a sociopath and his targets. They admire his cunning creativity and manipulative skills in transforming a target into a buffoon. Yes, some folks are always going to root for the villain, perhaps even taking a few tips and pointers for their own evil deeds. Of course, you will always have the gullible folks who actually believe everything the narcissist says without question. Then there are the greedy folks who believe they can help themselves to a piece of crazy-making pie by playing along, whether it be money, drugs, sex, or whatever suits their fancy.

Sociopathy is said to be the result of an underlying personality disorder, usually formed during childhood as the result of some series of physical or emotional traumatic events. My personal theory is that they are socialized using a manner of backward rewards and punishments for negative and positive behaviors. Furthermore, I believe they have a necessary purpose in the evolution (or devolution) of mankind: they polarize civilization, lest we all become too complacent and disaffected by the forces of evil. To clarify, a balanced society must have good people to counteract against bad people, but we can only become good through the rejection of evil, requiring that evil must exist if we are to also exist. Perhaps living beings require positive AND negative forces?

It seems like these forces are currently out of balance when we look at the disturbing events as of late. My personal and professional experiences have been sprinkled with more than a few crazy-makers. Someday I’ll write more about them, but today I’d like to remind you how a majority of good people have been drowning out their evil little voices with conversations which include words like “hope,” “faith,” and “love.” I believe it was the older, humbled King Solomon of the Bible who stated in Ecclesiastes 1:9: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” We have survived many evils, including civil unrest, disease, and war, because we refuse hatred and we choose love. As warriors of light, we will continue proclaiming words of truth and justice for all people.

Bullying, Domestic Violence, Stalking and Street Harassment – are they really so different?

We constantly pussy-foot around these issues by making excuses, and either compartmentalizing or minimizing toxic behaviors. It should not be this difficult for a society to recognize HARASSMENT, which is how it usually starts. After it escalates or continues over a period of time, it has evolved into ASSAULT.